Philadelphia’s The Franklin Institute opened its new $8.5 million Wondrous Space exhibit on 4 November 2023. The two-storey exhibit on space exploration features interactive displays and captivating simulations.
Backed by a $3m gift from the Boeing Company, Wondrous Space is a 7,500-square-foot exhibit. The first level fully immerses guests in simulations and experiences that will “transport” them to space, allowing them to control the forces of nature, travel immeasurable distances across the universe, and witness awe-inspiring space phenomena.
The upper level takes on a completely distinctive design tone, delving into space through the lens of creativity and innovation. It provides a deeper understanding of the future of life and work in space, showcasing new tools, tech, and techniques, as well as rising industry leaders and the varying careers related to space exploration and discovery.
Wondrous Space is created by MDSX Creative, an award-winning experience design, media production and creative management agency based in Orlando, Florida. The exhibit is the first of six upcoming experiences that will replace the Franklin Institute’s 12 existing exhibits over the next few years. All will be larger in scale and more future-focused, with themes including the human body, earth systems, the built environment, advanced machines and robotics, and computer science.
Abby Bysshe, chief experience and strategy officer at The Franklin Institute and Dan Picard, owner & creative director of MDSX spoke to blooloop about the partnership’s distinctive approach to reshaping the museum experience, the importance of diversity in the development of award-winning attractions and experiences, and the community engagement, diverse partnerships, and experiential elements involved in this vision.
Community co-design
Bysshe previously spoke to blooloop about the Franklin Institute’s master planning process. The new space-themed exhibit is, she explains, the first exhibition to start realising this vision.
“We took the approach we took with our master plan, which was to start with workshops,” she says. “We workshopped with about 150 students in total from the city of Philadelphia, trying to figure out what they were interested in when it comes to space. The team also did some design workshops with them so they could give us their honest opinions about what they did and didn’t like in design, which was brutal and hilarious. They didn’t hold back. It was great.”
Picard adds:
“We do this all the time when dealing with attractions, location-based entertainment, and museums. But it was neat to hear the kids vocalise the things that they do and don’t love. It was super insightful to hear what they had to say about the experiences and the content. Connecting with the people that are using our experiences is invaluable.”
Bysshe says: “It was a great way to start getting this huge topic down to something more manageable from an exhibit perspective. We also have a content advisory committee, which is a diverse group of people from across the space industry.
“Boeing put two fantastic young people from their company on our content advisory group. Throughout this process, they were a great inspiration for the connection we want kids to make with people in these careers, to get them excited about this industry.”
Creating Wondrous Space: a scalable approach
There are advantages to doing one exhibit at a time, Bysshe comments:
“You learn so much from each work process, who you’re bringing in and how you’re thinking about design; what’s working, what’s not working. You then get to apply all that to the next one, and then to the next one. It’s this wonderful iteration that we’re going through. We’re already making great strides in our Human Body exhibit, based on what we learned doing Space.
“We have a scalable ADA component to this,” Picard adds. “We started by talking to the community to form an understanding of what they needed. A lot of it is a process of trying something, seeing how it goes, and then updating that approach to the next gallery. It’s a very scalable way of listening to the community on how we can improve the experience for everyone.
“It’s truly a big design process. We design something, we learn from it, we add to it, we design something even better, we learn from it, we add to it, and we keep on growing. It will be a good test case for other museums in talking about how things are done, and how you communicate.
“When we talked to the Franklin’s operational team to understand what they like, what they don’t, and how we can make it better for them, it was a holistic conversation with everyone to see how the experience could be improved.
“This process starts with Space and will end with the last gallery we make. Hopefully, we’ll then have this giant design book that someone else will take and run with from there. That’s a cool way to think about this: it never ends. We’re creating the building the bones for innovation to continue and expand.”
Keeping kids engaged with Wondrous Space
There is a popular conception that attention spans are shortening in the age of TikTok. Addressing this, Bysshe says: “With the interactive museum, we do pretty well with keeping attention.”
However, she concedes:
“I don’t see people reading unless there’s no other thing to do in the gallery. Our panels are enormous in the downstairs gallery; it’s very concise, water-cooler-type knowledge. I’m interested to see if the parents, at least, engage with that, and then connect with the kids on that content.”
The museum is, she says, taking a layered approach to the way it designs exhibits:
“So, if the kids are just getting the ‘wow’ moments from the interactives, that’s fine, because there’s content there. If they want to dive deeper, there are media pieces and plenty of opportunities to learn more in that gallery if they choose to. I’m happy if the spark is there, and if they say, ‘This is super cool, maybe I’ll go home and learn some more about space. I didn’t realise science could be this fun.’
“That is a success for me. We’ve got three hours while these kids are in the building to get them engaged in science. If they can leave with a little bit more excitement about science, then that’s great.”
Where ‘wow’ moments meet facts
With Wondrous Space there is, Picard contends, a balance:
“You can see the astronaut suit dance, and then read the panel that tells you there are seven layers of an astronaut suit. I think we can do a really good job of balancing the fun and the retaining of that water cooler information because if the facts are cool and interesting, they’ll stick.”
“What we’ve learned from the educators is that everyone likes to be knowledgeable. Absorbing information in a very digestible way is a great way of doing that. If you hang out with a bunch of kids, you’ll know they’re always wanting to one-up each other on what they know. This will be a great way to have kids digest information at a very easy level, then they can go to school and go, ‘Hey, I can talk about EM waves’, or ‘I can talk about gravity on different planets.’
“Then we have artefacts from cool partners that people can look at, and some international flair, too. We have a company from Japan and a scientist and engineer from Saudi Arabia. We have a diverse group of people.
“Abby’s goal from the beginning was to show that space is for everyone.”
A future-proof approach
From an audience growth perspective, Bysshe adds another point:
“The other thing we wanted to focus on in this more sophisticated design approach is adults without kids.”
The design and way that content is presented offers a backdrop that feels more approachable for an adult audience, she contends, even though this is both a design issue and a business problem:
“Just because it looks cooler it doesn’t mean 20-year-olds are likely to show up on a family day on Saturday, but the first goal is to make this place feel more approachable for an adult audience.”
Picard adds:
“We’ve done a lot of research that shows when you skew young, then the older kids feel that this place isn’t for them. If you skew for the older crowd, kids always want that better aesthetic. They want that cool thing, not the one they feel is dumbed down.”
After all, as Bysshe says:
“Kids are playing video games. Everything that a kid touches in their everyday life has a very sophisticated design aesthetic. We’re just trying to meet them where they are.”
“You want people to go somewhere and be engaged. You’ve got to hook them,” Picard says. “You’ve got to make them feel, ‘We care enough that we made a cool place for you.’ Design gives a self, and a place; it gives identity. When you push the envelope, people start to engage, and to forge a personal connection.”
Diversity of thought and diversity of partners
Bysshe adds:
“I always talk about diversity in two ways. Diversity of thought and partners in designing is key. It’s great that Dan and his company come from an attractions background, and also work in museums. They see different technologies; they have different connections. They think about design differently. A lot of our interactive designers come from across different industries.
“Diversity of thought across a wide spectrum of entertainment and experience, pushing against what is typical in museums is very important to me to make sure that we’re always being challenged – and vice versa: we have certain things that we know work that we get to push against, as well, and from this, a nice middle ground emerges.”
“We are constantly pushing,” Picard agrees. “We come from two different industries, so it’s fun to say, ‘This is what works for us, this is what works for you.’ But I think we both come at it – especially with the topic of space – from the perspective that it is very important to talk about the diversity of mindsets. If you don’t have that, you cannot innovate.
“NASA themselves understand that they have a specific group of people designing all their things and have reached out beyond that. To innovate and be competitive in space exploration, new minds and new thought processes are needed.
“Having a design team that looks like the community, having an institution like the Franklin which is a part of the community holistically practising what it preaches is a great testament.”
Inspiring content for Wondrous Space
Wondrous Space opened on 4 November.
“It’s going be awesome for people who frequent the Franklin a lot; it’s different and new,” says Picard. “It’s also a preview for what will be happening with the Human Body exhibit, which will also be pushing the envelope.”
Bysshe observes:
“The hope here is not only to stay competitive in the world of experiential design and what a museum should be – you can’t sit back on your laurels; you must change with guest expectations. – But as those expectations change and those experiences evolve, it will open the door for more people to be interested in science. The experience is key in that, because science is hard, and sometimes people can feel it’s not for them, that this is not a place for me.”
Picard agrees, adding:
“But a great way to make it feel welcoming is to lean on the vibe. Lean on a place where you would want to hang out, and then have a sprinkling of information, and see what sticks. Like science, it is a learning process. We have to test things out, quantify, design, test. It’s part of the process.
“With this, I think we’re going to have a lot of interesting things to review and understand maybe they pay attention to this, and they don’t pay attention to that. One of the big things is the didactics. I’m curious to see if we’re right in predicting that by taking a bite-sized chunk of information and putting it in a cool space, it’s easier for people to absorb.
“We’ve just got to provide that spark, that energy, to drive them right into the thing they thought they never wanted to do – learn something.”
